compactConf is confusing
Concerned version
Version: %2.0
Summary
The configuration compacter is, in my opinion a dangerous option. One of my coworkers was confused by the fact his changes to OIDC settings weren't saved (because he had forgot to enable the OIDC issuer, causing his changes to be removed by compactConf). I remember a similar issue on the mailing list not too long ago.
This behavior is pretty confusing, there is no warning in the UI to tell you that your changes are being ignored. Perhaps we should completely hide the OIDC settings when the issuer is disabled?
(Same for SAML, of course)
Another situation where compactConf is annoying is the following:
- Spend 2 hours doing your LDAP config
- Temporarily configure "Demo" as a backend to handle an emergency, bugfix, or whatever
- Revert to LDAP, and you have to do all your config again, or restore a config file from the history.
Possible fixes
Is compactConf really useful? It saves a little space in the database, but most users will just drop old configs if they don't need them anymore.
I think we should replace the very recently added dontCompactConf
(false by default), by a compactConf
parameter (false by default), and let only the users who REALLY need it decide if they want it. It can be documented in the "performance" wiki page as a small enhancement.